


Late night musings

by ephemeralfangirl



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralfangirl/pseuds/ephemeralfangirl
Summary: Spoilers for 3x07. After their fight about Patricks time at the hospital, Shelagh can't sleep. Patrick has dreams.





	1. Shelagh

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is repost from what I had over at FF.net cause, you know, I'm cool now and on ao3.

A plaintive whimper escaped Patrick's mouth. It was barely audible and Shelagh knew that she never would have heard it had she not been awake. A second followed, just as painful as the first and the fist that had been clenched around her throat since Patrick had left this after their meeting with the adoption agency tightened further.

She hadn't meant those awful words, she didn't even know what they meant. Shelagh was well aware of his competency as a doctor, it had nothing to do with that. She even had benefited from his proficiency, so she knew they weren't intended like that. They had simply been a culmination of their first fundamental disagreement and, if she was honest with herself, she had meant to hurt him. 

Shelagh closed her eyes and let out a tremulous breath, hoping to release the knot in her belly. The feeling was both foreign and an ugliness inside her heart. It brought a shame she had never experienced and never wished to again. She stared at the ceiling, her hands clenching in fists when Patrick twitched next to her.

Why had she done that? She'd been asking herself the question since they'd silently gone to bed. There had been no kisses, no love, none of the touches she'd come to adore and crave. They'd been two strangers lying side by side in a silence so present it could have been a third person in bed with them. When Patrick had finally fallen in a restless sleep, due mainly to exhaustion, she let herself take a deep breath that didn’t last her very long. The noises had started almost as soon as he'd gone under, each one branding itself on her heart and his pain became hers as penance.

Why had she meant to hurt him? He was a good man, a wonderful husband, a brilliant father. He didn't deserve the pain she knew she had inflicted. Patrick twitched again and Shelagh turned on her side, facing his back. His hair was damp with perspiration and she reached to touch him, to soothe the nightmares the day had clearly awakened but she stopped short of touching him. She couldn't. She frowned and pursed her lips and realized she didn't know how. Her hand closed into a tight fist, and she inhaled sharply, bringing her hand over her heart. She knew how to touch him in intimacy, but she didn't know how to bring him comfort, she didn't know how to start fixing what she'd done.

A tear rolled over the bridge of her nose and fell noiselessly onto her pillow. Her hand opened over her racing heart as tears kept falling. She knew why. Shelagh dug her fingers into her skin until her nails bit into the skin. She’d hurt Patrick because she had felt inadequate. Not in the day to day as his wife, but as his partner, as the person he was meant to trust the most. She had felt that sliver of fear when she realised that maybe he didn’t trust her with more than what they were right now. That he couldn’t trust her with what he’d been because someone else had had that privilege.

Shelagh had never felt jealous of his first wife, not when Marie had left her with so much to be grateful for, but at that moment she’d been afraid that he felt she was not enough to know all of him. It might have been because she didn’t know how to ask. She didn’t know how or where to start. Patrick had always been the one to take the first steps. She had always only reacted. He’d been the instigator in all things, she had never learned how. It wasn’t a bad thing, she cherished the way they had started, but now she wished she had been bolder, was bolder.

The mattress jumped under her as Patrick jerked awake. Shelagh closed her eyes, lying as still as she could.  She felt the bed dip toward the middle as he sat on the edge. He sighed deeply yet shakily and she felt it flutter in her heart. He got up and walked out of the room, grabbing his robe on the way. Her eyes reopened as the bedroom door clicked closed. Shelagh stretched her hand over to his side of the bed. The sheets were warm and slightly damp. She wished it was his skin under her hand. It should be. It will be.

She took a deep breath as the fist around her throat loosened and smoothed the sheets. She could be bold. She had told him herself. She could learn how to start. She would learn how. It would be small, but he would know, she would make him aware, would let him know how loved he was, how cherished he was not matter what.

The decision loosened the fist around her throat. Shelagh took a deep breath for the first time that night. It was something possible, she didn't have to learn, she simply could do it and show him how much she cared. Pleased with herself, she turned toward the door to wait for Patrick, not even aware of falling asleep.


	2. Patrick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick's POV

Patrick closed the door behind him and clicked on the bathroom light. It flared brightly in his tired eyes. He squinted at his reflection and winced at what he saw. His eyes were blood shot and the underlying black circles under his eyes looked overly prominent against the clammy paleness of his skin.  He looked like the dead he was trying to forget.

He plugged the sink and turned the cold water tap on. When it was filled, Patrick immersed his face in the soothing coolness until his ears were covered. He remained in the silence until the images of his dreams came back. 

With a gasp, Patrick took his head out of the water, but the images didn’t leave. Though he occasionally dreamt about it, it wasn't blood, thorn skin or amputated limbs that burned his soul. It wasn't boys and men in uniform gone too soon or the crying families of the fallen comrade that asked you why you survived and they didn't that haunted his mind. 

It was the silent death brought on by the madness of man. It was the emaciated bodies who resembled walking skeletons, the people who dropped dead where they stood,the pits filled nameless people who used to be mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. It was the shadow of evil found in the hopeless eyes of people waiting to die, evil done to them by people like him: doctors who were supposed to help, to make things better. They were not supposed to find better, more efficient ways to kill. 

Those where the things that haunted his dreams, that sent him to the hospital after the war and that took away whatever faith he'd ever had in God.

He couldn't remember what had sent him to the hospital, he couldn't remember the trigger or even the first month very well. He remembered Marie coming to visit. They had married in haste when he had received his draft notice. It hadn't been what they had planned at all, but he didn't want to leave her uncared for if he died at the front. His months at the hospital were their first months as a married couple in the same town. He remembered the bright dreams she was weaving for their future now that the war was over. He remembered listening and wanting to tell her of the impossibility of those dreams when there was such evil in the world. He remembered her face the one time he had tried. He remembered everybody's faces when he tried and he remembered realizing he would always be alone with this knowledge.   
It had been at that time he had known he had to put it away in a locked corner of his mind so he could live the life he was meant to live. It had been an effort, but he’d managed it bit by bit. He had started getting well and people had congratulated themselves on his recovery, but he knew better. Patrick knew he could manage it, but it would always be there, he just had to take steps to control it until her could live with it.  
So he had changed the way he had always thought he would practice medicine. Instead of working in a high end practice or hospital, he had chosen to work in Poplar helping those who had less than he did and, as an added bonus, in close relation with the midwives and birthing practices. There was something about the new births that soothed his soul and the love it mostly came with put a balm on his heart.  
He was good at what he did, Patrick knew this. It wasn't vanity or misplaced pride that made him believe so, it was simply because he couldn't accept being anything else. Life was too precious not to take care of it in the best way he knew. He also knew his wife didn't doubt him, not his skill anyway.

His head hung low, Patrick sighed and took the hand towel to blot the water on his face and chest. He passed the towel on his head, feeling still too warm. He put it back and walked out of the bathroom. He considered going down to smoke, but it wasn't what he needed.

He walked back to the bedroom and stood in the doorway. Shelagh had finally fallen asleep. He had known when the dream had woken him that she was awake. He leaned against the door frame and looked at her. She was so beautiful. It caught him at the throat some times. His first wife had been beautiful too, but not in this way. For all her kindness and her goodness, Marie didn’t have the same kind of purity Shelagh had. Maybe it came from being a nun and working for the greater good all these years, but there was something unspoiled about her that he would rather cut his own hand than damage with the horrors he’d seen. 

Or maybe he was just a besotted fool who loved his wife too much. It hadn’t felt like this the first time. There had been a rush of sweetness that had swiftly turned into love and they followed the regular path. With Shelagh there had been a solid base of respect and a friendship before it turned into everything. One moment she’d been Sister Bernadette and then she’d brought him tea, a few words of comfort and he knew. It was so big he didn’t know how he didn’t see it before. He’d reluctantly watched her walk back to the dining room and known she was walking away with his heart.

He didn’t think he could bear see the doubt on her face again or the disinclination like he’d seen on Marie’s all those years ago. Most of him knew he would not, that Shelagh would willingly hear anything he had to say and wouldn’t judge him, the earnestness on her face when she had asked told him that, but he didn’t know how to confide in her and retain her regard. Patrick knew she wouldn’t love him less, but she might not see him whole anymore. She might see him as less than and something in him would die if she did.

He watched her snuggle deeper into her pillow and the sight beckoned him. He walked to the edge of the bed and pulled the blanket higher to cover her. His finger followed the contour of her bare shoulder as he did. The softness loosened the knot in his gut. He stopped when he reached her camisole and wound a single strand of golden hair around his finger.

With a deep sigh, Patrick rubbed the hair with his thumb. She had looked wounded when he had refused to speak. They had never spoken much, at first because they had no right to and then because he felt they had no need to. Perhaps that was a mistake, she might have interpreted his reluctance as distrust, but that’s not what it was at all. Patrick unwound the hair and leaned forward, ghosting a kiss on her temple. He lingered as long as he dared, inhaling the gentle perfume of her soap before he stood upright. He would have to change his ways. It was possible to discuss things without going into the details he wished to avoid. He just had to find the right moment.

With a last look at his wife, Patrick walked back out and down the stairs. He sat in his chair and light up a cigarette. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, not when the dreams lurked so close, his wife didn’t have to suffer through it. He leaned his head against the backrest and started to rebuild the wall between his past and what he hoped the future would be.


End file.
